McKenzie Leier

McKenzie is a fourth-generation North Dakotan who grew up with the extraordinarily flat land of the Red River Valley in her backyard. After graduating from Drake University, she worked for the Iowa Department of Public Health, then moved to Malaysia as a Fulbright English teaching assistant. After two wonderful years as a research assistant at Boston Children’s Hospital, McKenzie decided she was better suited as a public health upstreamist than a medical interventionist. She completed her MPA internship with the State of New Jersey, Office of Innovation. She is interested in health and development, both in low-income countries and the Native American reservations of the Upper Plains. She gets overly excited about the gut microbiome, the U.S. Women’s Soccer team, and lefse.